from Hacker News

The black hole picture is both an astonishing achievement and a deceptive image

by swombat on 4/13/19, 2:12 PM with 31 comments

  • by jameshart on 4/13/19, 3:30 PM

    The use of the word 'deceptive' in this headline is astonishingly disingenuous. I don't think the article intends to accuse the publishers of the image of deception, but the headline sure reads that way. The article is just trying to explain that imaging a black hole is inherently counterintuitive.

  • by gloflo on 4/13/19, 3:28 PM

    To save you from the clickbait: 'The simplistic portrait masks a mind-bendingly complex reality' is the subtitle.

    If you plan grace the site with your visit be prepared to be forced to thank them for telling you about their tracking.

    And if you actually plan to read the text be prepared to be forced to thank them for putting some advertisement in front of it.

    I left feeling violated and disgusted.

  • by simias on 4/13/19, 3:29 PM

    Given the original title of the submission I was expecting some clickbait drama but it's actually a pretty inspiring read.

  • by nvahalik on 4/13/19, 3:36 PM

    FTA: "An object in the centre of our galaxy (the Milky Way) called Sagittarius A* is thought to be such a “supermassive” black hole."

    If this black hole is 55M LY away and the center of our galaxy should have one. So, why is it that we can see this one, but not the one at the center of our galaxy? Is it because there are things in our line of site with it?

  • by ianai on 4/13/19, 4:16 PM

    I’m surprised by the amount of criticism and general push back this image has taken. I don’t remember anything similar from the LIGO nor LHC results.

  • by huhwatnow on 4/13/19, 3:57 PM

    It's not deceptive as much as it is dumbed-down and devalued as a tool for increasing scientific literacy and curiosity - at the very least the image should have included a distance and radiation energy scales - preferably several at different distances from the event horizon to account for GR. As it was released the xkcd comic of it provides more value than the image itself.